27.10.2004

Crisis demands end to fudge

Undoubtedly the Stop the War Coalition is in the throes of its first significant split since its formation in the aftermath of 9/11. Mick Rix, former general secretary of the Aslef rail union, has resigned from the steering committee, while, according to The Guardian (October 23), important sections of the trade union movement, notably Unison, are threatening to withdraw.

Indeed, extensive exchanges between the two sides - essentially the trade unions and certain Labour MPs on the one side, and the Socialist Workers Party, George Galloway and the Andrew Murray wing of the Morning Star’s Communist Party of Britain on the other - reveals much about the anti-war movement in Britain and the politics of the left. It is, therefore, worth first looking at the background.
The cause of the schism, on the surface at least, were the attacks made by the STWC in recent weeks on the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions, which has developed close links with some British trade unions. The coalition was particularly annoyed by the disgraceful role played by the IFTU - led by the Iraqi Communist Party - in defeating an anti-occupation motion at last month’s Labour Party conference.

This was made public in a statement by the coalition officers, who condemned the IFTU for “its political collaboration with the British government, exemplified at the Labour Party conference and its view that genuinely independent trade unionism in Iraq can develop under a regime of military occupation (including the daily bombardment of major Iraqi cities) by the USA and Britain” (Morning Star October 11).

It was this statement that Rix claims was the reason for his resignation. Published on October 20, his parting letter says: “I do not agree with assertions made over the conduct of union delegations at the Labour Party in the recent statement, and indeed the attacks made on Abdullah [Muhsin, the UK representative of the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions]. I think in these difficult times, the recent outbursts that have been made, and the personalisation have vastly reduced our influence and support in the movement.”

However, there is more to this dispute than simply the role of the IFTU. For a start, it is also about the apparent tendency of the STWC leadership to adopting more ‘extreme’ positions on the conflict in Iraq, therefore straining the broad coalition that supports it. Singled out here has been has been the SWP and the figurehead of the STWC, Respect MP George Galloway.

Previously, Galloway had launched a blistering attack on the UK representative of the IFTU, claiming that “The British state subverted the trade union leaderships at Brighton and coopted them into a bloody and catastrophic colonial adventure. And the state brought along its very own Iraqi quisling - Abdullah Muhsin, a trade unionist for 18 months who is now masquerading as the spokesman of the working class of Iraq” (Morning Star October 2). Galloway also let rip on certain anti-war trade union leaders, adding that their “cowardice and cynicism” led to the rout of the anti-war position at the Labour conference.

This attack on the IFTU brought a flurry of letters to the pages of the normally deadly dull Star, complaining about Galloway - amongst them one from Billy Hayes, general secretary of the Communication Workers Union (October 9). Since then, however, other leading British trade unionists have begun to distance themselves from the politics of the STWC leadership.

In a leaked email on October 19 Rix complained that the leaders of the coalition have “driven many TUs and their reps away from the position of support for the STWC, because of its clear, emerging political allegiance to its dominant political party, rather than the broad-based coalition support, that any movement/organisation needs to achieve success”. Clearly, by “dominant political party”, he means the SWP and its Respect front. Given that most of the critics are Labour loyalists, it is not hard to work out another political motive.

However, the attack on SWP-Respect is taking place side by side with an attack on the STWC’s uncritical support for the resistance in Iraq by supporters of Labour Friends of Iraq. LFIQ is closely linked to the trade unions, but composed of both anti-war and pro-war supporters and enjoys rather convivial relations with some Labour ministers.

LFIQ has made great play of the already mentioned STWC statement that in an early draft contained a sentence stating that “The STWC reaffirms its call for an end to the occupation, the return of all British troops in Iraq to this country and recognises once more the legitimacy of the struggle of Iraqis, by whatever means they find necessary, to secure such ends.”

The phrase, “whatever means they find necessary”, was seized on by anti-war MP Harry Barnes, leading supporter of LFIQ, who went so far as to put down an early day motion in the House of Commons, which read: “That this house notes that the Stop the War Coalition leaders recently put out a statement by email to its supporters which backed ‘the legitimacy of the struggle of the Iraqi people, by whatever means they find necessary’ to end occupation; believes that this scurrilous statement would strongly imply support for the so-called resistance and thereby acquiesce in the murders of more people such as Ken Bigley, as well as hundreds of ordinary Iraqis …”

What is at the heart of this dispute then is also the politics and future direction of the anti-war movement. This is why it is important. On the one side, the equivocal stance taken by the anti-war trade unions and their Labour allies, epitomised in their relationship with the ‘quisling’ leadership of the IFTU/ICP, and, on the other side, the ‘my enemy’s enemy is my friend’ stand taken by Galloway and the SWP, who are happy to view any ex-Ba’athist or islamic reactionary as allies in the anti-imperialist united front.

Indeed, in another leaked email, published on October 22, to Andrew Murray, chair of STWC and part of the pro-Respect wing of the CPB, Rix went further: “I don’t think you also realise the danger that your actions and those of the Respect colleagues in the STWC have placed Abdullah and perhaps others in the IFTU against attacks from extremists. Some people talk about life and death situations. Some unfortunately have to live it and so do their families in Iraq and I don’t see why you, Respect or the coalition have a right to think you can place them in that situation, when they are living daily with those consequences, because they are not the ‘new’ friends of yourself, George, STWC or Respect, such as extreme nationalists or religious fundamentalists.”

The reaction of the STWC has so far been conciliatory, although in his reply (leaked by Rix), Murray accused his former boss (until recently, the STWC chair worked as a press officer for Aslef) of ‘betrayal’. In a letter to The Guardian, SWPer Lindsey German, convenor of the coalition, stated: “Our position, which is the same as that adopted at the TUC conference, is that an early date be set for the withdrawal of British troops from Iraq” (October 25). Interestingly not ‘Support the resistance’ or even ‘Troops out now’.

Indeed it is against this background that one can understand comrade German’s opposition to the protest at IFTU general secretary, Subhi Al Meshadari, and his presence on the platform at the recent European Social Forum. Rather than championing the rights of freedom of speech, her motives were much more likely to do with not angering trade union leaders any further. Also, the Morning Star has for several months graphically displayed the deep and still growing divisions in and around the CPB, up to now the SWP’s ally in the STWC, between those wanting to stand by their fraternal comrades in IFTU/ICP and those, like Murray, who see them as collaborators. So the STWC leadership has not come out all guns blazing against Rix’s attack.

What position, then, should communists take towards this split in the anti-war movement? Clearly we should have no time for the allegations made by Rix or LFIQ. They amount to an attempt to alibi the treacherous role of the leaders of the IFTU and excuse the subservience that the British union leaders showed to Blair in Brighton.

Not only that: the criticism surely results from an adaptation, or a buckling, to the establishment’s propaganda offensive launched around the kidnapping and execution of Ken Bigley and others. The government line is that the invasion of Iraq is over and done. Differences were legitimate and understandable, but it is time to move on. ‘We’ have a duty to sort out the mess. Here, of course, the IFTU comes in handy for bringing trade union leaders and sections of the Labour left back on board.
Communists are perfectly clear about where they stand. We condemn those who helped Blair come out smelling of roses at Brighton and those who do not have the stomach to consistently oppose the brutal US-UK occupation because ‘our’ troops - and hostages - are dying in Iraq. Nor do we have any truck with the attempt by the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty to present Rix and co as a lesser evil.

One does not need to use Galloway’s hyperbole about the IFTU to recognise that Rix is playing a less than admirable role. As often is the case, the AWL’s viewpoint was crudely but aptly put by Jim Denham on a notorious anti-communist website. In a rhetorical flush, he asked: “Are we going to campaign to get more principled trade unionists to follow Rix’s admirable lead and quit this pro-fascist, anti-working class outfit?” (http://hurryupharry.bloghouse.net). Don’t think so, Jim.

Nevertheless, one can only have so much sympathy with the STWC leadership. Undoubtedly, its detractors are hitting at a weak point in its politics. For too long now it has stubbornly refused to recognise the need to stand in solidarity with the democratic, secular and working class forces in Iraq - particularly those of trade unionism and socialism.

When the CPGB has put motions to STWC conference calling for precisely this, SWP leaders raised their hands against us - not that I remember any trade union tops rallying to our call. The SWP claimed that such a motion risked undermining the broadness the STWC had assiduously built.

There lies the rub. The strategy of the SWP has always been to build as wide a coalition as possible, uniting Marxists, trade unionists, Labour MPs, greens, pacifists, Liberal Democrats and adherents of political islam. The mobilisation of numbers has been seen as the be-all-and-end-all. But life, as it always does, intervenes. Interests and programmes clash. Incompatibilities prove to be incompatible. Sides have to be taken. Allies become enemies.

That is why arming the anti-war movement with correct politics was always necessary and was never a diversion. Basically, we have argued for politics that were pro-working class … here and in Iraq.
Without such an orientation there was no chance of forcing Blair to break his alliance with the US, no matter how many millions were mobilised. Certainly the anti-war movement in its present form cannot hope to stop war as such, because to fight against war one must necessarily fight against capitalism. That is why trade unions and the working class should always be seen as central. Not mere ‘walk on, walk off’ extras, or just another colour to add into the rainbow coalition.

Yet, instead of getting the coalition to adopt a clear orientation towards the working class, the SWP insisted that the STWC stick officially to the lowest common denominator. Despite that, showing the centrality for the SWP of getting muslims as muslims and organisations such as the Muslim Association of Britain on board, the deliberately vague slogan of calling for ‘Palestinian freedom’ featured prominently alongside the ‘Don’t attack Iraq’ anti-war slogans. Fanatics who want to drive all Israeli Jews into the sea would have no problem with that either.

So while it preaches the virtues of broadness the SWP has in fact been pursuing left populism and courting islam to the point of Galloway’s anti-abortion statements and the auto-anti-Labourism in Respect.

This surely explains why the STWC leadership proposed, in the immediate aftermath of the beheading of Ken Bigley, support for the Iraqi resistance “by whatever means they find necessary”. As was eminently predictable, some union leaders and Labour supporters baulked at this. Lindey German bravely attempted to repair the damage in her letter to The Guardian, but it was clearly a case of wanting to avoid the hard issues at stake.

Given that Respect is banking on the so-called ‘muslim vote’, it is perhaps not surprising that SWP leaders have refused to differentiate between the anti-occupation forces in Iraq, giving the impression (accurate, as it happens) that they uncritically support, or at least condone, the actions of islamic reactionaries. This has been justified on the grounds that they are waging a struggle for Iraqi self-determination.

Yet this is at best a half-truth. Communists support national liberation movements against the forces of colonial and imperialist occupation. But, in general this takes the form of agitating and making propaganda here in Britain, specifically in the case of Iraq against the presence of ‘our’ troops. In the past they should not have been in India or Egypt. Today they should not be in Iraq.

It is the people of that country alone who must freely decide their fate; and historical experience shows that imperialism has no interest in ensuring such an outcome. The democracy they hand down is always a sham, designed with a system of endless checks and balances to prevent popular control. Indeed communists are quite frank: we prefer to see the defeat of US-UK imperialism at the hands of islamic reactionaries in Iraq than their victory.

However, none of that implies a beholden duty to glorify those who are ranged against the US-UK occupation. We cannot be indifferent to aims and class position.

Take the likes of al-Sadr and al-Zarqawi. Their vision of Iraq is one in which an islamic state rides roughshod over the rights of woman, religious minorities, Kurds and so on. They are anti-democratic and anti-working class. It is, therefore, vital that the left in Britain, including the STWC, seeks a constructive engagement with Iraqi working class forces, whatever their present leadership. Workers in Iraq must be encouraged to take a lead in opposing the occupation. If they stand aside, or look to the Americans to bring salvation, it will be the islamists who will continue to gain ground. That promises a terrifying outcome. No sane person on the left can want a repeat of Iran.

That the leadership of the STWC is blind to all this leaves it vulnerable to backsliders like Rix. The failure of the STWC to offer verbal, let alone concrete, solidarity to the Iraqi workers’ movement is a profound failure which allows Rix and co to adopt a fake left pose in relation to the occupation.
For our part, there is no contradiction between demanding troops out now and working for a genuinely progressive outcome in Iraq. Indeed, the continued presence of imperialist troops in Iraq can only bolster the islamic terrorists.